


Fever Dream

by Dredfulhapiness



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness
Summary: “He’s awake.” A firm hand gripped Peter’s forearm. “Pete, hey. How are you feeling?”A guy was standing over him. He could only be a few years older than Peter. Peter squinted in an attempt to make out the details. The guy cursed under his breath, and pressed a pair of glasses into Peter’s hand. When Peter put them on, the guy was staring down at him with an apologetic smile. He searched Peter’s face, but Peter just stared back, expression blank.Or: The one where none of it was real
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

Peter woke to fluorescent lights and murmuring. His head throbbed. His limbs felt heavy. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and swallowed again. Beside him, someone shuffled. He could hear a faint but steady beeping. The ceiling above him was blurry from sleep. 

“He’s awake.” A firm hand gripped Peter’s forearm. “Pete, hey. How are you feeling?” 

A guy was standing over him. He could only be a few years older than Peter. Peter squinted in an attempt to make out the details. The guy cursed under his breath, and pressed a pair of glasses into Peter’s hand. When Peter put them on, the guy was staring down at him with an apologetic smile. He searched Peter’s face, but Peter just stared back, expression blank. 

“Hey,” Peter said, but it sounded more like a question. 

“Jesus, Peter,” said a voice behind him, and Peter recognized it immediately.

“May,” he said, relieved. She eclipsed the stranger, rubbed Peter’s bicep, carded her fingers through his hair, held his face. There was a sharp pain where her thumb pressed into his cheek, but Peter didn’t pull away.

“You scared us half to death.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said, but he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. He glanced around the room. Balloons were floating behind May, bobbing with the air conditioner. There was a stuffed animal on the table beside the bed. A teddy bear: he was holding a heart that said get well soon. “What’s going on?” 

“Oh, right,” she said, still gripping his shoulder to ground herself, “the doctors said you might not be able to remember. You had an accident.” 

“An accident?” His throat was raw. 

“A tire blowout,” this came from the stranger. He was gnawing at the skin around his thumb. “Your bike went right into traffic.” 

Peter struggled to remember the last time he’d ridden his bike. Ever since becoming Spider-Man he’d opted for faster modes of transportation. Someone’s phone dinged.

“He’s in the lobby,” the stranger said. “I’ll go grab him before he sees…” this was directed at May. She nodded, not bothering to look up at him. She was looking at Peter, but her gaze was distant. “I’ll be right back.” He looked back at Peter, and his face broke into a huge smile. “I’m glad you’re okay, dude. You had us really worried.”

Peter watched him walk away. He swallowed again. He turned his attention back to May.

“Who was that?” His voice came out as a rasp. 

“What, honey?” her eyes focused. 

“Who was that?” May’s fingers stilled in his hair. 

“Who was who?” Her stare was intense. Peter felt foreboding rise in his gut, but he wasn’t sure why. 

“That guy that was just in here.” 

May glanced at where he was waiting for the elevator. “You mean Harley?” and her voice was shaking. A doctor walked by him, and he reached out, taking the doctor’s arm to get his attention. He said something that Peter couldn’t hear, but nodded at the open door. When the doctor followed his gaze relief that crossed his face. “Sweetie, that’s--”

The doctor knocked on the doorframe before she could finish. 

“Sorry to interrupt.” He grinned. He glanced between May and Peter. There was a pen tucked behind his ear, it reminded Peter, absurdly, of when he would go mini golfing as a child. That’s where Ben had always kept his pencil-- behind his ear, on top of the hook of his glasses. “I heard you were awake, I wanted to come check and see how you’re feeling.”

“Okay,” Peter said, still unsure. “My head hurts.” 

“I’d imagine. You have a pretty serious concussion, but we can give you some Tylenol.” 

“I actually,” May spoke up. She looked at Peter again. “I have a few questions…” she pointed to the hallway. The doctor nodded. “I’ll be right back,” she murmured in Peter’s ear. 

Even when Peter strained, he couldn’t catch more than a few, disjointed words of their whispering. Namely: “fairly common” “give him some time” and “traumatic.” He picked at the hem of the blanket, clenched and unclenched his fist. 

He felt heavier than usual. He thought about what the stranger had said: he’d blown out a tire on his bike. He strained, again, to remember. 

The last thing he remembered was space. 

The memory came back like a punch to the gut. He was in space, with Mr. Stark, and he was fading, disintegrating, and every nerve was on fire, he was…

Peter grabbed the handles of the bed. His breath came out shallow and shaken. His eyes trained on May. What did this mean? What was he missing? 

“He’s up?” Peter sat up. It sent a shock of pain down his spine. He grabbed at the base of his skull. The world around him swam for a moment. 

“Tony--” May started, but he was already shouldering his way into the room. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, and he almost didn’t notice the way his throat felt like it was dying. “You’re okay.” 

“I’m okay?” He stared at Peter, bewildered, and then moved in closer. “You’re the one that’s been asleep for a day and a half.” 

“A day and a half?” Peter cleared his throat. It didn’t help. “I don’t understand. I-I was-- we were just in space, a-and the, uh, dust, and that other guy, with the gun-- How did I get here?” 

Tony stared at him, frozen. He didn’t move his head as he shot his gaze, briefly, back to May in the doorway. “Sorry, kid,” he said, but his voice was high-pitched and nervous, “What was that?” 

“Tony,” May hissed again. She was glaring at him, a look Peter barely recognized, because May rarely glared. 

Tony held a finger up to Peter to signal one minute and ducked back out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

The confusion should have been what bothered him. He was surrounded (cautiously) by it on all sides. 

Instead, what bothered him was the way Tony walked out of his hospital room and said, “He just told me we were just in space.” As if none of that were confidential. 

The needle bothered him, too. The IV actually hurt. Normally it took the weight of a car nailing him, or a knife, for something to do damage. He felt like he’d been hit by a train. (It was a car, that kid had told him. Car. A car doesn’t normally hurt this much.) The noise in the MRI didn’t overwhelm his senses-- what would normally be too loud was just… loud. The conversation he should be able to overhear in the hall was just murmurs. 

They did so many tests that Peter lost count. Blood tests, MRIs, CT scans. They asked May if he had any aversions to any medications, any history of seizures, any history of memory loss, an incredibly active imagination, if anything like this had ever happened to him before. 

It took another day for Peter to be alone in the room with Tony. If May hadn’t been there, it had been a nurse, or (briefly) Happy, or a doctor. 

Tony had been trying to play it cool. Peter could tell, because he kept repeating himself. Kept making jokes. 

Peter had secretly been hoping the nervousness was the weight of a secret. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter started, suddenly weirdly nervous. There was a tightness in his gut that he knew wasn’t from the accident. “What’s going on?”

Tony looked at him, his eyebrows pressed together on his forehead. “You’re in the hospital,” he said, voiced etched in concern.

“No, I know that I’m-- I mean with-- with Thanos. Did-- did we win?” 

And Tony gave him the look that he’d been dreading: confusion, worry, a little bit of hurt. They were in a room without cameras, without bugs, without anyone else. 

Before Tony even replied, Peter knew the truth deep in his gut, twisting around his stomach and lungs-- Iron Man didn’t know who Thanos was, and Peter wasn’t quite sure what that could mean. 

“I don’t know what that means,” Tony said carefully, fingers itching like they wanted to reach for the call-nurse button. Peter watched him, and moved it back a little, closer to the pillows, out of his reach. “How’s your head, kid? Do you-- do you _need_ anything? I--”

“No!” Peter said quickly. “I-I’m fine. It just… It’s nothing, I was just…”

He was saved by the bell. Well, by the heart monitor. As he reached over to grab his water, the cord came loose from the electrode. The beeping interrupted whatever it was Tony was about to say. Maybe something more about doctors, or does Peter need anything, or more questions about who the fuck Thanos was and Peter was grateful for the beeping because it meant that he could avoid Tony’s worried gaze as he fumbled to re-attach the monitor. 

\--

The next time Peter slept, it was five years in the future. Well, not the future of the hospital-ridden Peter Parker, but the future of radioactive Peter Parker. 

It wasn’t a pretty future-- it was a violent, dusty, red-tinted battlefield. 

He didn’t realize it was a dream. Not when he swung into action, not when he had the gauntlet, not when Tony pulled him into a tight, metal hug that shook him to the core. 

He didn’t realize when Tony died, either, half of his body burnt and dull-eyed with exhaustion. 

He felt a tightness in his chest, the kind that made it hard to breathe and even harder to think. A lump in his throat. Someone-- maybe Rhodes-- put a hand on his chest. Pulled him away. He felt himself stumble, heard himself stammer something unintelligible, heartbroke. 

He woke up to the psychiatrist. In the psychiatrist’s defense, it was after noon, but Peter had spent most of the night being prodded awake for some kind of test or medication. 

She asked him the real questions: if he’d taken any drugs before the accident, if he’d ever had delusions before, if he had a history of amnesia.

And then she asked, “What were you dreaming about?”

Peter took a long sip of water. His mouth was dry. His hand was shaking. “Dreaming?” He asked in an attempt to gather his thoughts. 

“You seemed to be panicking. Do you remember what you were dreaming about?” She already had the pen pressed against her clipboard, ready to start writing even as she looked at Peter over the frame of her glasses. 

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “No,” he said, despite the fact that when he blinked he could still see the aliens closing in on him, overpowering him. “I don’t.” 

She sighed, the sound somehow harsh amongst the beeping and hissing of hospital equipment. Peter flinched. Took another sip of his water. 

“Peter,” she said, stern yet kind. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.” 

And he wanted to argue that he didn’t _need_ her to help him, this was something he could handle on his own. He was _Spider-Man_ for fuck’s sake-- but wounds that should have healed in a few hours still plauged him. He was still sitting in a hospital bed because _this?_ This was real life, apparently, even if he didn’t remember it all. Even if logic told him that of _course_ Spider-Man was a concussion dream, he couldn’t bring himself to shake it. He still felt himself worrying his lips between his teeth. He still felt a part of himself reaching out to a phantom sense, searching for danger he wouldn’t be able to find even if it existed. 

Peter took a deep breath in. He crushed the cup in his fist. He told her everything.

\--

The weirdest part of all this was Harley. 

Peter could identify everyone— Happy, May, Tony, Ned— but he had no idea who Harley was. 

The therapist assured him it was fine. He’d met Harley most recently, and Tony and Happy _years_ before. His brain was just struggling to keep up. 

It should have been reassuring, but when he, half asleep, heard Harley tell the nurse that Peter doesn’t like cranberry juice, actually, and can he have apple, it made Peter’s gut twist with guilt. When Harley lit up as Peter awoke from his nap, Peter felt sick. When May walked into the room and Harley stood, immediately, for her to sit and was instead enveloped in a hug, Peter searched his brain for any itch of recognition. 

It felt like one of those nightmares where he was taking a test he hadn’t studied for. Except this wasn’t a test. This was a person he’d never seen before.

Harley knew him, clearly, and Peter couldn’t even return the favor. 

—

When Peter returned back from a walk around the hallway to find Tony in the room, he could have melted with relief.

Normally, he didn’t remember his dreams outside of nightmares (and the nightmares were vivid-- aliens, fists, fights that he should have no part in. He remembered those even if they weren’t _real_ nightmares. That was the hardest part of this. Parsing through reality and dream.)

“You almost look human,” Tony said, and he sounded like someone had lifted a weight off of his shoulder. 

“What’s with that face, though?” Peter looked at the seat beside Tony and was surprised to realize he hadn’t noticed Harley sitting beside him. 

“Nothing,” he said, realizing only then that he’d been grimacing-- though, it was more likely from the recollection of his dream (Tony, dead) than the burning pain in his rib. “Just my rib.”

“I’ll grab a nurse.” Tony was standing before he even finished his sentence, halfway out the door before Peter could say no and beg him to sit down, because now it was just Harley and Peter alone in the room and looking at him made Peter feel guilty. 

Harley scoffed, smiled, attempted levity. “You know how he is,” he said. Peter just forced a laugh and nodded, because he wasn’t actually sure that he _did_ know. He knew how a version of Tony was, but were the two the same? 

The therapist had warned him not to dwell on that too much right now. The hope was that his brain would sort itself out when it became re-acquainted with his environment. Natural. Don’t try to force things. Don’t beat yourself up. So instead of asking any questions-- instead of biting his lip and feeling bad-- he gathered together the back of his hospital gown and, wincing, pulled himself into his bed. 

"The nurse was saying you should be out of here tomorrow if all your tests come back alright," Harley said, seemingly grasping for straws of conversation. "So you might get to actually be home soon." 

"Thank God," Peter said, "I'm probably so behind on my schoolwork right now."

"If you need help catching up, I can help with any math and science," Harley offered. He said it like it was something he'd said before, like it was an offer that was always on the table. "If you need help with a paper, I'd talk to Pepper, though. That's way more her speed."

"I--" Peter opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by the entrance of the nurse and Tony.

"He said you were feeling some pain," she said, her smile soft. "And you're actually on schedule to get some medication, so I thought we could help you out a bit if you want." 

Peter nodded. 

He looked away as she cleansed the his IV and shot the medicine in. 

"I worked everything out," Tony said as a distraction. "You're not going to lose your internship, we're going to shift it over to next semester, guaranteed." 

"My internship," Peter repeated, because the only mental image he could drum up was a hotel room in Germany. 

Tony tilted his head, opened his mouth.

"I remember my internship," Peter quickly added, even if it was only half-true. "I just didn't even think about that. Sorry. Can't I just finish out the semester?"

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You were just hit by a car, kid. I could get sued for having you work right now."

Out of the corner of his gaze, Peter saw Harley roll his eyes. It made the corners of Peter's lips lift. 

"But I could--"

"I'm not putting you to work until after Christmas," Tony doubled down. "And if you ask again I'll push it back to spring break."

Peter leaned back in his seat and hummed some kind of response. He could feel a rush in his head from the medicine. "Fine," he said, making a mental note to bring it back up later.

"It's getting late," Harley said, sneaking a glance over at Peter. "We should head out.

Tony looked at Harley, then at Peter. He cleared his throat. "Right. Yeah. Alright, Dorothy,” Tony said, patting Peter on the shoulder as he stood. “Get some rest.”

“Who does that make you, then?” Harley teased. “The scarecrow?”

Tony twisted his face. “Clearly I’m the lion. And clearly you have no respect.”

“You’re the coward?” Harley ducked out of the way as Tony reached to gently whack the back of his head. 

“The tin man,” Peter piped up, half asleep from the drugs already. “You’re the tin man.”

\--

  
Tony had been actively trying _not to worry_ about the kid. He knew it would just make him feel guilty-- make him feel worse-- so he made an effort to act like everything was totally fine, and normal, and Peter wasn’t talking about having died in space. 

Except it wasn’t. Except Peter woke them up screaming, thrashing around in bed. He seemed dazed a lot, stared off at nothing. He was confused easily, his mood shifted rapidly-- it all made Tony’s stomach lurch.

“Let him come stay with us,” he’d begged May. “You can stay, too, we have plenty of extra rooms. But there’ll…” he glanced back at Peter’s door to make sure he couldn’t hear, “there’ll be more people to look after him.”

“That’s too much,” she countered. “I appreciate the offer, but I couldn’t--”

“May, please,” Pepper interjected. “We wouldn’t be offering if it would be too much.” 

The silence was heavy in the air. 

“We’re worried about him, too,” Pepper said, one hand on May’s knee, the polite-yet-persuasive look on her face that only Pepper could really pull off. 

May relented. She would be at work most of the day, anyway, and summer break meant that Peter would be home alone the whole time. If it were just a concussion, maybe the absence would have been forgivable, but the combination concussion, bruised rib, and… and whatever the hell his new fantasy life was, leaving Peter alone wasn’t in the cards. 

So Peter stayed with them. Three doors down the hallway, just across from the intern from Tennessee. If he needed anything, they were right there. If he wasn’t feeling well, there were doctors on call. 

Tony hadn’t gotten much out of Peter after he’d met with the psychiatrist. He seemed hesitant to talk to him, but that just made the terror all the more solid in Tony’s throat when Peter would just stare out the window at nothing. Peter was jumpier now-- if someone surprised him, it was horror that crossed his face. 

And, maybe, Tony could chalk it up to the fact that Peter had just gotten hit by a car and that’s a startling situation, but this didn’t _feel_ like that. 

But what else could it have been? He’d been fine the week before. He’d pulled a near all-nighter in the lab with Harley, fell asleep curled up on one of the chairs and had stirred so little that Harley had made Dum-E poke him, concerned he’d died. 

That wasn’t the same kid who’d woken up nearly every night thrashing and screaming.

There was something sinister under the surface. Just like Peter’s apparent night terrors and his silence, it felt unrelated to the car crash and tied to whatever false reality Peter had created in his brain, and that scared Tony more than anything. 

\--

It was Peter’s yelling that woke Tony the night he found Harley holed up in the lab. 

“You’re handling this well,” Tony said into the dim lab. Harley jumped, his head whirling around to look at Tony. He banged into something, let out a slew of expletives that would have made a sailor quake. 

Tony turned on a light. 

Harley squinted at him. His tablet clicked as he shut it off. 

“Do you know what time it is?” Tony asked, crossing his arms in front of him?

“Do _you_?” Harley countered, his voice hoarse from disuse. Tony watched him glance at the clock.

“You should be in bed.”

“So should you.”

“ _Very_ mature. Are you done?” Tony stepped farther into the lab. Harley rolled his eyes and leaned back against the lab table. When Harley didn’t answer, Tony nodded. “What are you doing up this late?”

“I had some work to catch up on,” Harley said. 

“I don’t give you nearly enough work to keep you up this late.” 

“Not everything I do is for you,” Harley shot back. He flinched immediately. “I mean--”

Instead of biting, Tony said, “What are you even working on?” 

“It’s nothing,” Harley mumbled, shoving his tablet into his bag. “I lost track of time.” 

“If you need to switch rooms for a little while,” Tony started, “that can be arranged tomorrow. I mean, we have plenty of spare bedrooms, it’s not an issue or anything.”

“My room is fine,” Harley assured. He was clearly ruffled, though. Tony wondered if he’d been here all night or if he’d been woken up. 

“We could move him,” Tony suggested.

“Don’t move anyone,” Harley snipped. “Sorry,” he said, softer, but he didn’t sound like he really meant it. Tony bit his tongue. He gave himself a moment to remember Peter and Harley working together, bickering like siblings, being practically inseparable for nearly a year. 

And then he thought about Harley being forgotten. Just like that. 

“Hey, I know this is rough—“

“I’m fine,” Harley persisted. “Really.” 

He let the door close behind him on the way out. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone's staying indoors and washing their hands! If you wanna come talk to me, or send me head canons I'm available on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness ! Also, feel free to leave a comment :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying a thing where I make the chapters progressively longer so that I can get used to writing more. I'm also going to try to update this one every two weeks!
> 
> You can come talk to me on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness if you want to! I'm fueled by asks and comments, honestly.


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